Would you like to download a copy of this book/website to read offline? Click Here to download the printable PDF version |
 |
Acting Home
Contact Us
01. Type
02. Stardust
03. Foot In Door
04. First Beachhead
05. Faith
06. Your Business
07. Mirror Up
08. Smooth
09. Air Power
10. Conscious
11. What, Why, How
12. Naturally
13. Red light
14. Move With Traffic
15. Co-Ordination
16. Alchemy
17. Close-Up
18. The Truth
19. Body
20. Talk English
21. When + Where?
22. Double Talk
23. Atomic Drive
24. Torchbearers
Resources
Privacy PolicyContact Us
| Chapter - 12 |
| Timing-Doing What Comes Naturally |
There are two times people move: when they're talking—and when they're not talking.
Notice the two general patterns.
When people move during a pause (while they're not talking), the movement does not overlap either the end of their last spoken phrase or the beginning of their next spoken phrase. Usually they pause to take a breath. Sometimes to emphasize their words.
When people move during a spoken phrase, they generally start moving on the first syllable of the phrase and stop moving on the last syllable.
By watching others in natural conversation, we find them using these over-all movement-speech patterns. Instinctively, they are obeying two laws: the laws of timing, which are these patterns organized and codified.
People completely fill a pause with movement or they exactly synchronize speech with movement because—they're doing what comes naturally. Their dialogue is spontaneous conversation, created under real-life conditions. Consciously or subconsciously, they direct their own scenes, in settings and situations they voluntarily accept or reject.
The actor speaks dialogue created by someone else. He does it under conditions deliberately created by someone else. He is directed by someone else, in settings and situations arbitrarily devised by someone else.
In other words, he plays a part. The source of what he has to say and do, when, where and how he has to say and do it is outside himself.
The actor's problem is to make what he says and does, where, when and how he says and does it seem real. As IF he were the source.
The actor's solution to that problem is the use of common denominators, or connectors. One of the tremendously important common denominators to help the actor in his substitution of a character's personality for his own is the dual pattern of movement and speech.
There are two times people move: when they're talking—and when they're not talking.
That pattern becomes your TWO LAWS OF TIMING.
FIRST LAW OF TIMING—MOVEMENT DURING A PAUSE: Move during the whole pause and nothing but the pause.
SECOND LAW OF TIMING—MOVEMENT DURING A VOCAL PHRASE:
Start the movement on the first syllable and end it on the last syllable.
Now that you've focused your aware-beam on the two laws of timing as a connector and common denominator between acting and real life, burn them into your conscious mind.
Start with the eyes, face, arms and hands in some single actions you make every day. We'll arbitrarily use them in some flexibility and control exercises.
We will call each single action a UNIT OF MOTION.
Before you start your first flexibility exercise, sit down and look straight front. Imagine your head completely filling a motion-picture screen with your nose at dead center. Your chin touches the bottom of the screen, and the crown of your head touches the top.
Mentally pinpoint your nose at dead center of the imaginary screen. Don't let the pull of gravity draw your head down, thereby dragging your nose below dead center. Don't let your head drift or tilt to one side.
In practicing the exercise, follow the numbered order of the units of motion.
You're establishing a technique habit of making one clean unit of motion.
Do each unit of motion to a count of four. If you're working with someone, take turns calling off the drill. If you have a tape recorder, pre-record the drill for yourself. If you have no outside assistance, call the drill mentally as you do it. Be sure your eyes move in clean, straight lines.
All right, now. Head-on close-up. Nose dead center. Let's go.
EXERCISE(Repeat Ten Times)
1. Eyes right 9. Eyes right oblique up
2. Eyes center 10. Eyes center
3. Eyes left 11. Eyes left oblique up
4. Eyes center 12. Eyes center
5. Eyes up 13. Eyes right oblique down
6. Eyes center 14. Eyes center
7. Eyes down 15. Eyes left oblique down.
8. Eyes center 16. Eyes center
In your next exercise, while still completely filling your imaginary motion-picture screen with your head, and still keeping your nose pin-pointed at dead center, make—separately—some eye and head movements. Make them without moving the shoulders or any other part of the body not specifically mentioned in the drill.
No drift.
At "eyes right," for instance, focus your eyes on a definite point at your far right. Hold this point until you get another eye order.
Take four counts for each single unit of motion, and take the units in numerical order. The center of the screen is always "your center" in the exercise.
EXERCISE(Repeat Ten Times)
1. Eyes right 17. Eyes right oblique up
2. Nose right 18. Nose right oblique up
3. Eyes center 19. Eyes center
4. Nose center 20. Nose center
5. Eyes left 21. Eyes left oblique up
6. Nose left 22. Nose left oblique up
7. Eyes center 23. Eyes center
8. Nose center 24. Nose center
9. Eyes up 25. Eyes right oblique down
10. Nose up 26. Nose right oblique down
11. Eyes center 27. Eyes center
12. Nose center 28. Nose center
13. Eyes down 29. Eyes left oblique down
14. Nose down 30. Nose left oblique down
15. Eyes center 31. Eyes center
16. Nose center 32. Nose center
You're ready to add other arbitrary units of motion to this exercise. One is a full smile. When the drill calls for "smile up," it means show your molars and hold the smile without drift, until you get a further smile order. "Smile down" means simply no smile. It has nothing to do with making a grimace. The other units of motion use the hands and arms, but not the shoulders. We'll call the complete exercise a "continuity cavalcade." Follow the units of motion in numerical order.
Still seated comfortably, look straight ahead. Rest both hands on your knees in a starting position.
EXERCISE(Repeat Ten times)
1. Eyes center 18. Eyes center
2. Eyes left 19. Right hand to top shirt button
3. Left hand to top shirt button 20. Nose center
4. Smile up 21. Right hand down
5. Nose left 22. Eyes right oblique down
6. Right hand to top shirt button 23. Left hand to top shirt button
7. Left hand down 24. Smile up
8. Eyes center 25. Nose right oblique down
9. Smile down 26. Right hand to top shirt button
10. Nose center 27. Eyes center
11. Left hand to top shirt button 28. Smile down
12. Eyes left oblique 29. Right hand down
13. Right hand down 30. Nose center
14. Smile up 31. Eyes right oblique up
15. Nose left oblique up 32. Left hand down
16. Left hand down 33. Right hand to top shirt button
17. Smile down 34. Nose right oblique up
35. Smile up 38. Nose center
36. Left hand to top shirt button 39. Left hand down
37. Eyes center 40. Smile down
41. Right hand down
42. Relax
You have just done an exercise using arbitrarily selected units of motion. A whole procession of them—a continuity calvacade.
Practice this exercise until each independent unit of motion follows the other with clocklike precision. There must be absolutely no overlapping between units. No drifting, jiggling, or squirming before, during or after the units of motion.
It may take several days to get the precise perfection of custom-made machinery into this continuity cavalcade. But they'll be interesting days. Days of important achievement.
Focus your aware-beam on the arbitrary units of motion. Pull them firmly into your conscious mind. Work on them till you have absorbed them into your subconscious. Then they will become your tools. You will be able to use them automatically—on command.
Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...
